The Dagger

When a college basketball coach wants to demonstrate a prospect is a priority, he'll occasionally show up to one of that player's games with all three assistants in tow as a message that there's no one else the staff values more.

Arkansas coach Mike Anderson even topped that on Monday night. The entire Razorbacks team joined him at Fayetteville High School to watch elite class of 2016 prospect Malik Monk.

Every Arkansas player sat side-by-side in the first row of the bleachers for Bentonville High School's lone visit to Fayetteville this season. Monk led Bentonville with a game-high 26 points, but Fayetteville pulled a 72-59 upset in the regular season finale for both teams.

The recruiting ploy from Arkansas reflects Monk's stature as one of the most coveted prospects to come out of the state in the past decade.

The most important play in Iowa State's come-from-behind victory on Monday night might was made by someone wearing the opposing colors.

Oklahoma's Isaiah Cousins awakened the Cyclones from their game-long slumber with a technical foul that he now probably wishes he hadn't committed.

When Oklahoma's Ryan Spangler swatted a shot by Georges Niang out of bounds with his team leading by 20 points five minutes into the second half, Cousins shouted something profane in the direction of the Iowa State bench. Referees assessed a technical foul on Cousins for abusive language, igniting an unfathomable run from the Cyclones that propelled them to a 77-70 victory.

Iowa State scored on seven straight possessions immediately after the Cousins technical, stringing together stops and parlaying them into transition opportunities. The surge reached 22-0 when Dustin Hogue buried a corner 3-pointer to give the Cyclones their first lead of the game and 37-8 when Monte Morris sank a jumper to extend the advantage to nine with five minutes to go.

Two weeks ago before Michigan hosting Michigan State in Ann Arbor, former Wolverine Nik Stauskas and former Spartan Draymond Green made a bet about the outcome and talked a little trash to each other on Twitter.

Both are in the NBA these days. Stauskas is a rookie with Sacramento and Green plays for Golden State.

The Spartans won and Stauskas was forced to pay up by wearing a Michigan State T-shirt and being photographed in it. Green posted the spoils of victory on his Instagram account for the world to see on Monday. He also gave Stauskas credit for being a standup guy.

Shoutout to nikstauskas11 in the 2014 Big Ten championship shirt that he took the L to them Spartan… https://t.co/2iUs1SVqjk

You MUST respect @nstauskas11 for taking a pic in the State shirt and living up to the bet... That's very very tough to do... #RESPECT

The first time Texas had a chance to hold for the final shot on Monday night, the outcome was a contested 25-foot jumper from Jonathan Holmes that barely even drew iron.

The Longhorns were a bit more successful the second time.

With Texas and Baylor tied in the final seconds of overtime, Javan Felix drove right, drew the attention of the defense and zipped a cross-court pass to teammate Isaiah Taylor. Lester Medford and Taurean Prince got caught watching the ball and were slow to rotate, enabling Taylor to split them both off the dribble and sink a floater to give his team a potentially season-saving 61-59 victory.

Had Texas not overcome a 10-point deficit in the final seven minutes of regulation against the No. 14 team in the nation and then found a way to win in overtime, its flickering hopes of earning an at-large NCAA bid likely would have been snuffed out.

Both students spoke with their peers about the alleged sexual assaults during a pair of off-campus retreats designed to promote open discussion of social issues, but neither formally reported them to the police nor to Duke's Office of Student Conduct. The fear of backlash from the Duke fan base was a factor in the decision the two female students made to not pursue the allegations, according to the Chronicle.

The allegations were brought to the attention of a team psychologist in March 2014, the Chronicle reported. High-ranking Duke officials, including the coaching staff and athletic director Kevin White, learned of the allegations later that month.

While the unbeaten Wildcats have all but locked up the NCAA tournament's No. 1 overall seed, the three remaining No. 1 seeds are still up for grabs entering the final week of the regular season. Below is a look at the seven contenders for those three spots in order of most likely to least likely to get one.

Before BYU snapped third-ranked Gonzaga's 41-game home winning streak on Saturday night, the Cougars were an NCAA tournament-caliber team without an NCAA tournament-caliber résumé.

They had zero victories against RPI top 50 opponents. They had a pair of sub-100 RPI losses to Pepperdine and a third at San Diego. The most notable wins they had attained all season were at home against fellow bubble team Stanford and at home against likely NIT teams UMass and Saint Mary's.

One monumental road win in Spokane isn't a quick fix for those flaws in BYU's résumé, but it will force the selection committee to take a closer look at the Cougars. What they'll find is a profile that will test their philosophies and a team the eye test and computer numbers agree is probably better than its lack of notable victories suggests.

BYU is No. 26 in the KenPom rankings mostly because the use of margin of victory as a tool to determine a team's strength favors the Cougars.

Gonzaga found one way to settle the debate over whether it deserves a No. 1 seed despite playing in a weaker league than the other contenders.

The Zags suffered a 73-70 home loss to BYU on Saturday night that likely removes them from consideration barring a flurry of setbacks from other top teams.

Though Gonzaga boasts a 29-2 record and quality non-league victories over SMU, St. John's, Georgia and UCLA, the Zags' eight top 100 RPI wins are the fewest among the nation's elite teams. That's not Gonzaga's fault since it did its best to assemble a formidable non-conference schedule, but it's a byproduct of playing in the RPI's ninth strongest league.

Whereas it was easier to overlook the flaws in Gonzaga's resumé when its lone loss was in overtime at Pac-12-leading Arizona in December, a loss at home to a BYU team that was on the fringes of the bubble picture prior to Saturday changes that. The Zags can still get a No. 2 seed if they win the WCC tournament in Las Vegas, perhaps in the West if Arizona either ascends to the No. 1 line or suffers another loss or two and drops below Gonzaga in the pecking order.

Three times in the final 75 seconds of the Pac-12's game of the year, Utah had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead.

Seventh-ranked Arizona emerged with an enormous 63-57 road win and clinched at least a share of the Pac-12 title because each time its defense held.

Utah had to settle for an errant Brandon Taylor 3-pointer on its first chance since star Delon Wright gave up the ball early in the possession and was content to be a spectator. Wright did not make the same mistake on the Utes' second chance, but when the All-American candidate shed T.J. McConnell via a ball screen and attacked Kaleb Tarczewski off the dribble, the Arizona center was able to recover quickly enough to contest his potential go-ahead layup at the rim.

Boise State overcame a lot of history Saturday night to earn what could prove to be a milestone victory at San Diego State.

The Broncos won for the first time at San Diego State 56-46 and ended the Aztecs’ 29-game home court winning streak as well as their 47-game home winning streak when leading at halftime at Viejas Arena. It was the first road win against a ranked opponent for the Broncos since 2012 and only the second win against a ranked opponent in 20 such games under coach Leon Rice.

The victory gave Boise State a season sweep in the series with Aztecs. So while the teams are tied atop the Mountain West standings, the Broncos hold an edge. That advantage is buoyed by the fact that Boise State’s final two regular season games are against San Jose State and Fresno State while the Aztecs must face tougher challenges against UNLV and Nevada.